Welcome to Up Around the Corner, Anne. Please, tell
us a little about yourself and your writing.
Hi Terry, thanks. Really abbreviated professional bio – I
knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, and I got an MFA in fiction
from the University
of Pittsburgh California
I’ve always written fantasy or works with a fantastic
element to them. I enjoy world-building and I’m still like a little kid with
liking magic. My writing process is a lot of improv – I have never been good at
outlining. In MOTH AND SPARK I made a
lot of initial authorial choices that limited what I could do, and I’m looking
forward to writing something very different in the future.
Could you tell is
about the journey from writing the first words to selling MOTH AND SPARK, and what you did and/or wrote while you were
working to sell the novel?
I wrote a first very shoddy draft the summer before I
started law school and worked on it during school. After a couple of years I
sent a draft to an agent who really liked the first half but said, correctly,
that the second half didn’t really go anywhere. I plugged away at revisions for
the next three years, a few hours a week, while I finished law school, passed
the bar, and worked as a lawyer. When I finally felt it was ready, which was
summer of 2012, I sent out queries and samples to some agents who were actively
soliciting new clients. I got some bites right away, so I tried a few larger
agencies and landed with The Gernert Company in August. I did a couple rounds
of revisions, and the book was sent out shortly before Thanksgiving, and there
were multiple offers within a couple weeks. It all happened so fast that I
didn’t start anything new until about a month after the sale. I don’t like to
talk about my WIPs before they are done because I have been known to write 100K
words and then have the book crash and burn, but this one is another fairly
traditional fantasy. After that, I’ll try other directions of spec fiction.
Does your study of
the law and other schooling have an impact on your writing?
Good question. In a general sense, education is like any
other experience that goes into a writer’s life and shapes ideas and provides
material. As far as law school particularly, I was a writer before I went. One
of the reasons I finally went to law school was that the characters in the
fantasy novel I was writing at the time were spending a lot of time thinking
about power and justice, and it seemed that if that was what I was interested
in, I might as well make some money at it. Law actually is a really good
complement to epic fantasy; it’s about conflict, it’s about social order, it’s
about remedying wrongs. Decisions are about the balance of power. Law draws
heavily on history and tradition. Judges wear robes and we call them “Your
Honor” – it’s one of the last bastions in American culture of medievalism.
There are also some really excellent examples of writing in
legal decisions; I love Robert Jackson, who was an FDR appointee to the Supreme
Court, because he is such a good writer. (Justice Scalia is also a very good
writer, especially when he’s ticked off in a dissent, though I rarely agree
with him.) My own writing of briefs and such has really helped me with reducing
ambiguity in my word choices and with structuring plot. And of course writing
with a deadline that is inflexible (“This has to be filed by 4 p.m. TODAY”) gave
me a lot of discipline for sitting down and writing every day instead of
waiting for inspiration.
When you’re writing a
novel, do you think about who your audience might be? Who do you (and your
agent, publisher/publicist) believe the audience for MOTH AND SPARK will be? Even if unanticipated, would you like
Justice Scalia to be among your readers?
Ha! Yeah, I do think about my audience – it’s inevitable.
This one I started for my fifteen year old self, so the audience I had in mind
initially was mostly teen girls who are not going to put up with a lot of
stereotypes about male and female relationships but still have a romantic
streak. Since I was writing for myself, I wrote what I wanted to read. When I
realized I wanted to publish, then I broadened it to a larger set of readers
who enjoy character-driven fantasy and know a sword isn’t the only or even best
way to solve a problem. It’s still PG-13, though. One of the biggest surprises
for me has been how many male readers have really liked it. We’re also hoping
the book gets readers who don’t normally read fantasy but are intrigued by the
story and that there’s a cross-over effect. And of course I’d be happy if any
Supreme Court Justice read it, and I’d hope Scalia would learn a little about
what it’s like for women to be oppressed by a patriarchal society.
Moving away from work
and writing for a moment. Can you share with us some of the activities and
pastimes you enjoy with family, friends and even when by yourself?
I take a lot of photographs, mostly either landscapes or
close-ups of something natural (plants, rocks, insects). I like textures. In
the last few years I’ve gone on photography expeditions to Yosemite National Park
and the Eastern Sierra, Joshua Tree National Park ,
and Santa Fe , New Mexico
Where do you hope to
see your writing career ten years from now, and what steps do you plan taking
to help ensure that happens?
Well, I hope to continue to be a full-time writer. For that
to happen, of course, I need to keep writing and to keep writing well. I’m
pretty good at the discipline of writing daily for 6-8 hours; I shoot for an
average of 1500 words a day. To keep myself writing well, I try to read a lot
and see what other people are doing, and I plan to write a lot of different
things. I’d like to try my hand at some SF, other kinds of fantasy, perhaps an
alternate history, things I can’t even think of now that will make me grow as a
writer instead of turning out 8 more versions of the same novel. I want to
experiment with different narrative voices and interesting structures. In 10
years I want people to be talking about whatever I’ve published then and to be
excited about that instead of thinking of me only as the author of MOTH AND SPARK.
Makes sense. There is
some crossover from Fantasy to SF, and even more crossover of readers within
the fantasy sub-genres.
As we’re closing in
on the end of the interview, Anne, is there anything else you’d like to add or
say to the readers here at Up Around the
Corner?
Well, first of all, if you’re a writer and it really is your
passion, keep at it. Also, read and write outside your comfort zone so you can
stretch. One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever heard was to be aware
of my habits. I think habits are inevitable when trying to tell the story,
because the first round is getting the idea on paper, but they can drag the story
and the reader down with repetition and predictability if they aren’t reined in
on revisions. Finally, I’d just like to say that there’s a lot of really good,
interesting, smart work going in in fantasy right now, and it’s really exciting
both as a reader and a writer to see the sorts of directions opening up. I
think the genre is only going to get stronger.
You can find my website (with a blog) at http://anneleonardbooks.com. I’m on
Twitter at https://twitter.com/anneleonardauth
and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/anneleonardbooks.
MOTH AND SPARK
publishes February 20, 2014. It’s from the Viking Press and available through Amazon,
Barnes
& Noble, and independent
booksellers in hardcover and as an e-book.
(BTW, the hardcover is really really gorgeous, Viking Art Dept. was
fantastic!)
Thanks for the questions, Terry, and best of luck with your
own books.
You’re welcome, Anne,
and thank you for taking the time to answer questions and share with us here.
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